Development and implementation of an APP to simulate centrifugal compressors

The simulation is a key subject in the current curriculum of chemical engineers. In this paper a simulator of centrifugal compressors is presented. The goal was to develop a user-friendly, efficient and low computationally-demanding simulator of centrifugal compressors under APP format. This simulator was developed considering the polytropic behavior of gases and Peng-Robinson’s equation was used to obtain the compressibility factors. The break horsepower, impeller diameter, angular velocity, volumetric flows and number of stages were determined for the centrifugal compressors. The results disclosed that most design parameters of centrifugal compressors showed deviations between 2 % and 10 % regard those reported in literature. Thus, the validation of the APP is achieved. According to students’ perception, the design of interface, the functionality and performance of this simulator allowed the understanding of compressible flow applied in the design of centrifugal compressors. Besides, this simulator works under both manual and automatic mode and runs on computers with standard hardware and software specifications. Automatic mode of the APP generates the design of compressor once user introduces the physical properties and operation conditions. In the manual mode user is required to introduce the same data as the automatic mode but also the compressibility factors. The manual mode increases the interactivity of users with the APP and reduces convergence problems, while the automatic mode improves the efficiency of the algorithm. In addition to the academic benefits determined, this simulator could be used to generate preliminary designs of centrifugal compressors for industrial sector.